Frederick J. Osterling Collection

About Frederick J. Osterling.

Frederick John Osterling was a Pittsburgh architect in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Osterling was born in Dravosburg, Pennsylvania, on October 4, 1865. His parents were Philip Osterling, a Civil War veteran who came to western Pennsylvania at age 11, and Bertha Stauffer, whose family were early settlers in Butler County. Philip and Bertha Osterling had five children: Frederick, Daniel, Bertha, Annetta, and Elizabeth, who died at the age of eleven. The family moved from Dravosburg to Allegheny City while Frederick was still young. There he attended the Manchester School, followed by the Lessing Institute. Following his education, he went to work in the office of architect Joseph Stillberg. Osterling experienced success in architecture from the start, having a design published at age 18 in , and also being called on to design a house for his father’s lumber business partner at age 19. Following these successful events, Osterling’s would soon travel to Europe to study the architecture for approximately one year.

Upon Osterling’s return to Pittsburgh, he set up his own offices and would soon create designs for Allegheny High School, the Magee Building, the Washington County Courthouse, and, perhaps most famously, the Union Arcade. He also designed additions to the Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail complex, which was originally designed by Boston architect Henry Hobson Richardson. His work also extended to residential designs, being commissioned to design Charles Schwab’s home in Braddock, Henry J. Heinz’s "Greenlawn," and the expansion for Henry Clay Frick’s "Clayton."

Frederick Osterling died in Pittsburgh on July 5, 1934. He was unmarried and so left his estate to his surviving sisters and Martha Aber. Aber then claimed she had been his “secret wife” in an attempt to access a widow’s pension instead of the lump sum he bequeathed to her. Aber took her case to the State Supreme Court, who ruled against her in 1940. Osterling is buried alongside his parents and his sister, Bertha, at the Rosedale Cemetery in Ross Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.